From: samiam489@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2001 5:01 PM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Oppose FDA's New Regulations on Genetically Engineered Food
Samantha Leidner Leidner
123 W Maple Ave
Libertyville, IL 60048
samiam489@aol.com
RE: Docket No. 00N-1396, and 00D-1598
Dear FDA,
I am outraged by your new policies on genetically engineered (GE) foods. Despite overwhelming consumer demand, your agency still fails to require safety testing and mandatory labeling for GE foods. Your "notification" policy is an insult to consumers, and irresponsibly ignores strong scientific evidence of numerous potential health and environmental risks to GE foods. You should be aware that these foods could be toxic, could cause allergic responses, could have lower nutrition value, could compromise immune responses in consumers, and could cause irreparable damage to the environment.
I am also greatly opposed to your new "voluntary labeling" policy, which denies consumers a basic right to know. Without mandatory labeling, neither consumers nor health professionals will know if an allergic or toxic reaction was the result of a genetically engineered food. Consumers will also be deprived of the critical knowledge they need to hold food producers liable should any of these novel foods prove hazardous.
I am a chemist working in the pharmaceutical field and have a background in ecology and horticulture. I know first hand the risks that GE foods could cause, not only for loss of nutrition and toxicity, but also, as in the fish industry, escape of modified organisms into the natural environment could compromise the nutritional and ecological value of many other species.
Your proposed rules ignore serious concerns, and appear to be a decision made to convenience industry at the expense of public health and the environment. I will not accept your attempt to make me a guinea pig of these untested foods, and I trust you will take my concern along with the thousands of others into serious consideration.
Sincerely,
Samantha Leidner Leidner